Pasture Paramedic

Opportunities in Pasture Training

It’s a good time in the next few months to find out how you can get your pasture back into shape with using the Pasture Paramedic kit and the newly created grazing management factsheets.

Southern Farming Systems on behalf of MLA have now written six new factsheets to help producers with what to do next following a Pasture Paramedic decision of manipulating pasture condition.

Be the first to be trained up in using them or in our other project areas of sub-clover, soil and weed management. Workshops commence in late May. Pasture Paramedic kits will be available at these following events.

24th May, Optimising sub-clover performance – GSSA event at Dunkeld.

25th May, The latest tools in pasture assessment and grazing management, Tatyoon

5th June, Pasture Field walk, Mt Hesse, PPS event

20th June, Women on Farms, Hamilton area

21st June, Women on Farms, Lake Bolac area

Late June, Tasmania

More details…

Here is a bit about our latest factsheets. They will be made available soon on our website.

An overview factsheet was created on, “How do I know if my perennial grasses need rescuing?” This was developed to help producers identify what might be causing low desirable perennial grass content in their pastures. It contains a useful check list to tick off the main considerations you need to get right to improve perennial grass content.

Two resources were created for advisors. The first of these factsheets was called, “How do I get my pastures to thrive and survive,” and “How do I get perennial grasses to thrive and survive in late spring and summer?”  They both contain detail about the principles of perennial grass growth and their implications for grazing management. This factsheet focused on understanding the common grazing requirements of grasses but also differences in management over late summer and spring which enable production and persistence.

There were two tactical factsheets developed that were tactical. The first is “How do I optimise seedling recruitment to avoid resowing?” It describes the methodology needed to successfully encourage seedling recruitment and how it can help restore the density of perennial ryegrass and cocksfoot paddocks.

The second tactical fact sheet was, “How do I remove excess mature reproductive pasture?” It describes the importance of removing the dead seed heads to encourage new growth in summer and autumn. It contains strategies for management of mature feed in late spring and tactics for removal of mature feed.

The final fact sheet developed was, “How do I respond to challenges in grazing mixed pastures?” It was written recognising that producers cannot always implement ideal grazing practices and there are common unavoidable challenges that occur in grazing mixed pastures. It contains a quiz of common challenges where producers can think about how they would respond and then check what is the appropriate response and the reasoning behind it.

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